10-49. Dog-Head Demon Lord (2)

Satou's here. I've read in some book that if there are two humans together, a quarrel will certainly happen. During my school days, I had been asked to mediate some fight between friend couple, but most cases were misunderstanding caused because the other party didn't hear the full story. Indeed, communications are important isn't it.

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"You shouldn't lend your ears to the demon lord's nonsense okay?"

The one that has suddenly appeared is a little girl of 5-6 years old unbecoming of this place.
The AR indicator shows only [UNKNOWN].
However, I feel like I've seen her face somewhere.

"Well I never, to think that you'd appear before me! This is unlike the coward you--Parion!"

Is this little girl the god Parion who summons heroes?
The demon lord creates [Combustion] sphere like earlier, and then slashes the little girl with the transformed glaive.
The little girl burned out in an instant like she's made of a papercraft.

Huh? Are gods weak?

"You're being rude you know? My hero. I've created this figure in order to save you from the demon lord's cajolery you know?"

The little girl who has regenerated herself before I knew it rebukes me.
Don't tell me she reads my mind?

"My hero you said?"
"You be silent for a bit."

The demon lord gets imprisoned in a piece of picture that's appeared in the air.
I see, I thought that I had seen her from somewhere, she was the waving little girl inside the painting in the duke's mansion hallway.

"Looks like you've finally remembered."

Wait, if she was in contact with me at that time, that means she knows that Satou is the true identity of Nanashi?

Please stop having a conversation with my mind's voice.
Oh, rather than that, there are other things I have to ask.

"God, are you inhibiting civilization like the demon lord's said?"
"I have no interest in people's business, at least for me. My only interest is only you always."

I feel like she's obfuscating something.
I have to press harder.

"Do you not manipulate humans' heart to stop them from popularizing things like printing or hot-air baloons?"
"A god who did that would be hurt you know? But, why would gods inhibit printing? What's the biggest bestseller in the earth? Remember and think about it."

Bestseller, it's that huh.
In that case, what's the objective of the god who's inhibiting.

"Then, don't you cause disasters, and gather believers from your own work?"
"I don't, but it seems to be getting popular among other gods. Since disaster adjustment seemed to be hard, along the way, gods who rule battles began to enjoy making their own believers to fight each other as their proxy."

The girl shrugs her shoulders like it's other people's problem.
It's certainly something that gods would have seemingly done, but it's mostly prank, and doesn't affirm what the demon lord's said isn't it?

"In addition, looks like they've become prudence ever since the demon god appeared. I mean even without us, the demon god causes the disasters called [Monsters] and [Demon Lords] in our place. The gods can live in comfort even without doing anything, they lead a leisurely life while basking in the flowing faith."

I feel that there's something odd. It's inconsistent with the legend about how the god Parion asked the dragon god to teach her the magic to summon hero. The truth might be different than the picture book though, so I'm awfully interested.

"I've been thoroughly deceived, you god's watchdog!"
"Didn't you misunderstand on your own?"

Looks like he had a hard time inside the painting, he has injuries all over the place and unlike his gentlemanly appearance before. His 180 centimeters body has seemingly also undergone two-fold transformation, changed into a five-meter tall giant werewolf. He looks like he's going to bite with his bare fangs at anytime.

"Hey, demon lord."
"Shut up watchdog!"

The flexible shield endures the disintegrating breath that the demon lord has vomited for only an instant before it disappears. It can only buy enough time for me to go outside of the breath's range with Flash Drive huh. I really can't protect against truly powerful attacks if I don't get the Chanting skill in order to use advanced level magic.

"Do you know the bestseller that's sold the most on earth?"
"Fuhn, it's Bible right? Or maybe you want me to say 'Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung' or 'Quran'?"

Yes, the book that benefits most from printing is the Bible as it helps spread its ideology.

"So you know, I wonder why are temples in this world don't hold political power like on earth."
"What are you--"

The demon lord was going to deny my doubt, but the thing I wanted to say had been transmitted.

Yes, if the purpose of the gods are gathering believers, it's strange for them not to spread religious country and priesthood country.
Shiga Kingdom and Saga Empire have freedom of religion since they're founded by Japanese people.

There should be countries backed by gods in a world where gods exist.
However, besides the Parion and Galeon Union, and the Tenion Republic, religious country doesn't exist. And, although every one of them is big enough to be a mid-sized country, they really can't be called large countries. They should have been bigger countries if they're backed by gods.
At the very least, a country with a god that can easily imprison a demon lord in a painting should be able to invade Shiga Kingdom easily.

And back to the argument, I don't think that gods have any motive to prevent the popularization of printing which can mass produce the sacred book, the most convenient way to propagate faith.

"In other words, you bastard are saying that the one who disturbs the progress of civilization is none other than myself!"
"There's a slight probability about other third party though. Maybe it's easier to understand if I say that the one who's hostile to gods disturbs the popularization?"
"Ridiculous..."

I wonder if he's persuaded now.

"Ridiculousssss, then what have I been doing? ....Was this long strife a mistake?!"

Ah, oops.

"Grrrrou, just for what sake, this hands killed the crying mikos noda? Killed the naive commoners who couldn't throw away their faithhhhhh"
"Calm down."

Ah, he won't calm down with that huh.
Apparently, I've also become slightly flustered.

Aah, he's begun transforming.
Looks like the dog-head demon lord is changing from looking like a dog-man into the form of a beast, a demon dog. The gigantic demon dog with more than 100 meters overall-length barks toward the sky.
My words already can't reach him no matter what I say.

It can't be helped, let's thoroughly beat him and return him to his sense.

With Flash Drive, I shoot [Explosion] from 256 directions randomly, and mix Holy Buckshots shots at 16 directions. The topography has become quite dreadful, but it's sand anyway, they should be restored if the wind blows.
Furthermore, I strike him with 128 [Thunder] magic, summoned from the thundercloud.

Apparently, the demon lord has judged that the Holy Buckshots pose more threat than the magic.
He deploys the Anti-Physical to block the Holy Buckshot, and take the magic with multiple scaly small shields, and his countless followers. Some of the explosions break through the demon lord's defense, creating holes on his body.

The followers are coming attacking me while holding magic swords on their mouths, but I can easily dodge them as long as the demon lord himself doesn't come. Even if those magic swords have [Annihilation] effect from Library, there's no problem as long as they don't hit me.

While exterminating the followers and the demons that he's created, I'm beating him thoroughly to restore his sense, but the situation doesn't look favorable.
I overdid it once and killed him, but he was immediately revived like with the wild boar king. Demon lords are hard to deal after all.

"Kuha, kuhafuhahaha, this world can perish for all I care noda."

Ah, looks like he's snapped.
I guess it's better to kill him once again.

"Gods and humans and demons, they can all perish noda! 『God-devouring Wolf (Fenrir)』"

Wait a minute dog-head, please don't make this become honorable death or forced double suicide. Futhermore, since when were you a wolf.
The disintegrating light spread out with him as the center. The spreading speed is slow, but the desert is vanishing spherically.

I try to use [Break Magic] on it, but it seems to have different structure than magic as it disintegrate the [Break Magic] itself. Even when I try to snatch his magic power with [Mana Drain], the feeler is disintegrated to become mana, it doesn't go well.

This is slightly bad. Holy Buckshots and Laser were only getting swallowed by it, there wasn't any effect.
The Divine Sword can probably cut it, but considering the blade's length, it'd be over with my body disintegrating. I'm not into suicide, so let's think about other ways.

The light of disintegration speed slightly fell when it was disintegrating sand dunes. I tried to throw it large amount of debris and seawater from my storage to it, and its speed fell even further.

I guess that'll work?

I re-check the map again to see if anyone's here. Looks like there isn't anyone according to the map, maybe because this cataclysm has been going for a long time. There are some scarab-like and scorpion-like monsters, but it's not particularly a problem as long as there's no human damage.

I stow away the Durandal, and use a magic while exchanging it with a magic sword that acts as a magic power tank.
While taking out seawater, I amass ice walls several kilometers around the demon lord who has stopped moving since he started swallowing the desert as the center.
Of course I don't think that this kind of things can stop the demon lord's Unique Skill.
After I've finished building the ice wall, I return-teleport to the hut of a mountain at the verge of the desert.

The disintegrating light hasn't disappeared even after getting battered by more than 100 meteors.
Un, it's within my expectation.

Stars fall toward the disintegrating light.
Even though it's getting broken, even though it's getting disintegrated, the stars continue to fall.
After more than 1000 gigantic meteors downpouring onto the desert, the disintegrating light finally disappears in the bottom of the crater.

For this occasion, I had used the stored magic power in the magic swords to rapidly invoke 10 Meteor Showers.

I've put the ice wall to prevent it from influencing the neighboring kingdoms, but it seems a little bit of sands have leaked out. Each kingdoms should be able to do something about it since it's just a little. It's way better than a raging demon lord.

I quickly eliminate the violet lights that have appeared in the bottom of crater created by the meteor shower, using the Divine Sword.
Due to observing it, this time I was able to confirm that the violet light had been absorbed by the Divine Sword. There is no change on the Divine Sword after all. Maybe it acts as some kind of sealing tool?

I felt some sense of guilt after destroying the dog-head demon lord, but I decided not to mind it.
He seems to be a demi-god, he's probably going to be revived on his own sooner or later. He probably won't have any unique skill left, but worrying about a demon lord is probably a waste of time. He might regain his sanity since the god's fragments had come off him.

Now then, I've disposed of the demon lord, and collected general information.
Let's go back to everyone as they're probably worried.

Perhaps, they might have even defeated the floormaster already.
Just in case, I put some vestiges of the meteor shower into my storage, and teleported to the labyrinth.